Bad Touch
by BuriedMemory22
Summary: Skip Weaver led an ordinary life as an engineer of the last city, but always dreamed of a life of glory. After the fall of the tower in the wake of the Red Legion's attack, a twist of fate has caused a forbidden weapon to fall within his grasp. Will Skip answer the call of heroism, and become legend? Or will the darkness within lead him down a different path?
1. Knight of Staves

My name is Richard Andrew Weaver, but you can call me Skip. My friends called me Skip, and we're friends, right? I hope so.

I'm a mechanoelectrical engineer for the Last City. All those flashy arc conduits that power the city? The handiwork of guys in my field. Among other things, we handle powering Wall defenses, sewage processing, and mass transit. While guardians are out fighting for the light, we're the ones that hold this entire complex together.

As the metaphorical glue that keeps the chaos of the City controlled, you'd think it was a respectable career, but you'd be wrong. The vanguard, surprisingly, know practically nothing about the ins and outs of power generation or machines since they rely almost exclusively on their Ghosts to handle the work.

Ghosts! By the Traveller, I wish I could pick one's brain. Ghosts are these tiny flying robots that bond with guardians symbiotically. Leftovers from the golden age, ghosts are the Traveller's will made manifest; thus speaketh the Speaker, may he trip on his obnoxious robes... but I digress. All ghosts are essentially miniature databases, matter-energy converters and 3-d printers all in one. Basically any engineer's wet dream come true.

Sadly, a ghost can only bond with a single person, for some mysterious reason, and each guardian has one other important qualification; they have to have died. As a person of flesh and bone, a puny mortal born within the city walls, I will never be a guardian.

But a guy can dream, right? You hear stories, well, the stories that the vanguard let leak. Great battles, strange planets, ancient threats. It's all very vague, frustratingly so. But one thing is clear from it all; guardians are not like you or me. They are a breed apart, forged in light. Badasses that are a cut above the likes of regular men, with incredible powers and supernal skill at arms.

I reminisce on this fact as I lean on my push-broom and watch the goings-on in the courtyard of the Tower. A semi-circle of guardians in one corner is having some kind of dance-off. Another is staring threateningly at the cryptarch, a blue engram clutched tightly in one hand and breathing heavily. Credit to Rahool, he has balls of steel, dropping sarcastic quips and sneering at guys that eat the Darkness for breakfast. Across the way, I see a particularly twitchy guardian throw himself repeatedly off of the tower with neurotic glee, only to be resurrected by his ghost. Yep, these guys are our last line of defense against the darkness.

Then again, maybe I'm just being bitter. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all. Which brings me back to where I started; myself. I have about twelve years in the field, and tons of practical experience. Going by golden-age educational standards, I'd have the equivalent of a Masters. I've personally made big contributions to the city; notably, one tweak of my invention to relay superconducting coils saves an average of 5% of power consumption over a year. The vanguard were so impressed with this, that they gave me a ribbon. A ribbon! I didn't even get a raise for it. See, I should have gone into weapons research and development, that's where the money is. These guys seem to care about nothing but guns.

I feel something prod me in the back. It looks like Rusty the robot wants me to continue cleaning. With a sigh, I lean over and get back to work.


	2. The Tower

_I dodge the fallen captain's flaming projectiles, hand cannon held aloft in my metal-studded grip. Dozens of dregs litter the battlefield between myself and the towering alien, and debris from countless more shanks and spent shells seem to cover every open surface. I'm alone; the other guardians ran from the approaching army. I stayed, in spite of it. I understand the importance of my duty... if the artifact falls into the hands of the darkness, the fate of the City, or perhaps the universe itself will be at stake._

 _Darting from behind a crate to unload on the enemy, I hear an audible click as the chamber cycles to empty. Cursing, I cast aside my gun, dart forward and grip the trusty blade at my back. The captain fires rapidly, but I preempt his shots by strafing from side to side and rapidly close the gap. I leap high into the air, and with a mighty downward swing bring the full power of my sword and momentum to bear on the foe before me. The captain's cry of rage matches mine, and it raises its weapon to block. Sparks cascade between us, and time seems to pause for a moment as the opposing powers of darkness and light hang in balance._

 _An explosion rings out and I'm launched backwards. My head is throbbing in pain, and a wave of heat washes over me. Twenty feet off, there's little remaining of the fallen captain aside from a smoking crater. I stand, weary but alive, and raise my blade in victory._

 _Then I notice it... this... humming. It seems to shake me to my bones, exacerbating my headache. Finally I spot it; a gigantic servitor hovers directly over me. My mouth falls open in surprise, and before I can react, a concentrated blast of plasma ejects from it and washes over me with a crash-_

I jolt awake, startled and bleary. I'm partially reclining on a sofa, and sunlight has creeped into the darker recesses of the hangar. A sleeping bag is sort of draped over me, and an overturned metal bowl rests on the floor next to the coffee table where my foot kicked it. Judging by the mess of scattered playing cards on the table and my throbbing brain, the maintenance crew probably pulled another all-nighter. The vibrations of my datapad rattle the surface of the table at regular intervals, and after a minute of negotiating with my eyelids I rouse myself into a sitting position.

Yawning, I reach across and grab the device. Gazing around the hangar and wincing at the lights, I marvel at how quiet the place is this early in the morning. Nonetheless, my duty roster already has six tickets on it along with a message from Holliday. I right the bowl and place it on the table, clean up the cards, then see about getting a hot cup of coffee.

* * *

Sipping the coffee, I go over to the end of the hangar where Holliday is working. Guarding my eyes against the sunrise with one arm, I stare out over the expanse of the Last City. With the Traveler's familiar shape cast in shadow against the sunlight, it looks more menacing than protective.

I cast my eyes back towards Holliday. She's rooting around in something underneath her "baby". This ship is supposed to be the most advanced ever designed, and could revolutionize space travel for centuries to come- or so she says. Amanda is a bit of a dilettante, switching from one project to another with an almost manic (if temporary) fervor. I suspect that this vessel will end up like so many other "revolutionary" Holliday designs, abandoned and salvaged for parts.

"Yo, Amanda. What's the story, morning glory?", I ask amicably.

"Just a sec, Skip. I just need to- hey! Hand me a #2 L.T.S.?". A grease-covered hand cranes out from under the tarp, grasping impatiently. I oblige her and hand off the screwdriver. Several seconds later, she scoots out from underneath on a dolly, brushes herself off and stands.

I pass her the second cup of hot coffee. She smiles, and takes a sip before speaking,

"Finally awake, sleeping beauty? I'll have to remind you to lay off the synth-ale next time."

I rub the sand out of my eyes and respond,

"I never want to hear about alcohol again, synthetic or otherwise."

"Ah, don't be like that! Honestly I think it's kind of endearing. At least you aren't an expensive drunk.", she chuckles.

"Silver linings, I guess. So, what'd you need from me? More Cayde mischief?"

The shipwright shakes her head, and her smile slips a bit before answering,

"Ah, no. It's... the Speaker. He's locked himself out of his observatory again."

"F#%k. I do not want to deal with that windbag this early in the morning..."

Amanda hunches her shoulders and leans forward a little with her hands behind her back. You'd think someone with her reputation for badassitude would have a harder time pulling off puppy eyes, but she has it mastered.

"Pwetty please? With glimmer on top?"

I sigh, and take a swig of my rapidly-cooling coffee.

"Fine, but you owe me lunch.", I reluctantly affirm

"That's the spirit!", she exclaims, and socks me light-heartedly on the shoulder.

* * *

The speaker taps his foot incessantly, and asks for what seems like the tenth time,

"Are you finished yet? Time is of the essence."

 _Time for what? Worried you'll be late for staring at a hologram and muttering all day?_

Of course, that isn't what I say. Instead I answer with a smile,

"Yes sir, Mr. Speaker. I'll have this door open in a jiffy."

"See that you do. My work is of the utmost importance, and I have no need for these kinds of petty contrivances."

He resumes his stressful pacing.

Sighing, I return to my task. Truth be told, I could have gotten his door open a while ago, but I'm indulging in a bit of schadenfreude at his expense. This has got to be the third time this month that he's left his keycard inside his residence. Ordinarily ghosts can unlock just about any door, but a new council ordinance has imposed tighter security restrictions around key areas of the tower- and as the sole representative of the Traveler, his home has fallen under the new procedures.

 _Maybe baking in the morning sun for a half an hour will learn 'im._

He pauses his pacing for a moment, and creeps a bit closer to me, until he's almost breathing down my shoulder.

"One must not stare into an eclipse. Light may be concealed in the darkness, but it is a mirage."

I stare at his blank white mask in surprise and incomprehension.

 _You know what? That's enough._

I toggle a button on my datapad and his door slides open.

"Your door is open, Speaker. Have a good day.", I say quickly, as I gather my tools and walk away.

Rather than entering his abode, he stares at my retreating back with disturbing intensity.

 _Creepy old man._

* * *

By the time I get back to my duties, I'm up to my ears in backlogged requests and maintenance checks. I set to work reinforcing the communications stanchions around the roof and along the perimeter of the wall. Zavala's been pretty serious about this plasma storm that's rolling in, and wants things operating perfectly in spite of the conditions. By the time that's completed, it's already noon and I'm starving.

I end up meeting with Amanda at the ramen shop. This place has been pretty popular lately, and the clientele is pretty varied. After about twenty minutes of being queued to order, I finally reach the head of the line to get a steaming bowl. Food in hand, I start to leave as someone brushes past me in a rush to cut to the front of the line. My noodles scatter on the street, and I turn to the culprit-

And find myself face-to-face with a member of the vanguard, an exo by the name of Cayde-6. My mouth hangs open as I search for words... and he finger-guns me.

"Sorry, butter fingers.", he explains, wiggling his thumbs. "I'll get you next time!" He turns back to the counter and places his order.

His flippant reaction sort of takes me by surprise, and I hang there for a few moments in shock and frustration until my datapad starts vibrating. My lunch break is up. My stomach growls in protest... but duty calls.

On my way back, I pause for a moment in the street as a thought strikes home.

 _Wait... does he even eat?_

* * *

A few hours later...

I meet him in the usual place, in a dark corner just off of the maintenance halls. We don't say anything as I carefully open the access panel and twist a cluster of optical cord. With a hiss, a nearby door decompresses and slides open to reveal countless treasures beyond, placed on rows and racks around the perimeter of the chamber. The guardians' vault is pretty impressive, from an engineering perspective. It's reinforced in several layers of various meta-materials designed to absorb and disperse both kinetic and energetic attacks. Scanning through the walls is all but impossible, and if that isn't enough, the entire section is encased in several feet of amorphous, high-carbon steel. If nothing else, the guardians take their protecting their gear very seriously.

Lord Shaxx strolls by me into the interior. The gigantic man is pretty intimidating, even if you know him. He has this kind of feral nature about him, like a tiger ready to pounce. Like someone distilled and bottled violence. He's a nice guy, really. Just don't piss him off.

I met him about five years ago, when I was still new to the whole engineering thing. I was pretty nervous about working in the tower, and he sort of reached out to me. Several beers down the line it sort of became obvious he was priming me to do something for him, but by that point I was too drunk to care. What can I say? I'm a lightweight.

So that's how I ended up breaking into the vault for Shaxx. I was terrified I'd get caught and jailed (or worse, exiled), but he didn't rat me out. Instead, he leaned on me even more! This whole breaking-and-entering thing has sort of become a regular habit for us since then. About once a week, I get a blank message from this anonymous "user #0" account. That's his signal for us to meet. And it's not like we're doing anything bad, you know? We aren't stealing. Shaxx typically looks at the weapons, plays around with the ones that look cool, and puts them back. We leave, and nobody's the wiser about it.

To be honest, I've grown to sort of enjoy our secret forays into the out-of-bounds section. I've always secretly idolized the guardians, and sometimes they bring in some pretty incredible weapons. And besides, it's kind of exciting.

Lord Shaxx strides to the end of the chamber, and runs one gauntlet-ed hand across a cruel-looking sword that lies there. It seems to have some kind of flames-motif going, and I can see a shard of some crystalline material dimly glowing in orange. I gaze around the interior for my own point of interest. Eventually my eyes rest on an odd-looking thing under glass.

The weapon looks like some sort of rifle, but it's hard to make out clear details with the moldy cloth covering it. A hunk of some twisted blade sticks out of the front end, and the center...

 _What the hell?_

A series of concentric rings with glowing runes rotate around a mote of some black substance. At first I think it's some sort of ferrometal, but on closer inspection it's clearly not. I can't precisely tell where the mote of black ends and the air begins... like my eyes are sliding off the edges. Suddenly I feel very small.

I step a bit closer to get a better look, and I notice that the speck is throbbing at regular intervals. The sound in the room seems to fall away into an indistinct buzz, and my breath starts to fog the glass. It begins to dawn on me that the mote is _beating in time with my own heart-_

Shaxx slaps me with a beefy palm on my shoulder, shaking me out of my daydreaming.

"Oy, son. Zavala's on the coms for you."

I straighten up and fumble with my coms-band, "Yes, sir. This is Richard Weaver. Please repeat."

"Yesss... I've been expecting an update on our sensor array in advance of the plasma storm. You were scheduled to turn in the report half an hour ago. Where are you?"

"Er, yes sir. The report. I'll have it to you immediately. I was... indisposed. My lunch didn't agree with me and-", I try to explain. My face winces a bit at the flimsiness of my excuse.

"Stop. Just get that report delivered, on the double! Zavala out."

I rush out of the vault as fast as I can. I need to get the data collated for Zavala before I can turn it in, and I'd been putting it off. I'll just have to trust Shaxx will shut the door behind him.

* * *

I'm walking on eggshells as I cross the control room towards Zavala. Fortunately, he doesn't rebuke me as he wordlessly receives the data-pad and scans the contents. I wait for a moment with baited breath, and he pivots away from me back towards the other two guardians in the room. I let out my breath slowly in relief, and begin pacing away.

 _Sometimes, it's not so bad flying under the radar._

I've seen hardened guardians melt under one of Zavala's verbal assaults, so I don't give myself good odds on holding up well against his characteristic tidal-wave of criticisms. I don't get why Cayde enjoys pushing the commander's buttons so much...

 _Maybe he's a masochist?_

My musings are interrupted when Zavala starts shouting something.

"Battle stations!"

I pause for maybe a half-second in surprise, then I scramble to the nearest station, and begin activating automated turret defenses. My hands fly across the holographic control panel, and in a few seconds the emergency protocols initialize.

"Everyone with me! Now!",

Shouts the commander, as a hemisphere of void light expands around him. Looking back towards the windows, I can just make out the silhouettes of countless ships- and a swarm of missiles- on approach. I sprint for the safety of his shield, but the first few missiles strike the tower first. The exterior supports buckle, and the terminals begin flickering and flashing. One to my immediate left erupts in a shower of sparks, hurling me towards the wall to my right.

"Aagh!"

I see stars as I pull myself to my feet and half-crawl away from the exploding computer equipment. I can't feel my fingers in my left hand- it's gone completely numb. My teeth hurt and I can feel tingling in my spine. Maybe I can try circling around the back of the room. Running towards the missiles was a bad idea.

 _It's got to be high-temperature ionized plasma. The containment on the conduits wouldn't be compromised without heat strong enough to strip their non-conductive plating, and electrical field emissions strong enough to collapse the magnetic shaping fields._

These and other disordered thoughts run through my head at light-speed as adrenaline sets in. The air of the interior is filling with oxidized metal particles and noxious smoke. Microscopic fragments of disintegrated glass bombard me, and my skin burns in a hundred places. Coughing, I round the railing, run down the stairs two steps at a time and shuffle into Zavala's protective bubble. And just in time, too. Dozens of missiles converge on us, blasting the command center.

I throw up my good arm to shield my eyes from the ultraviolet radiation splashing across the interior. For a moment, I think I can see my radius and ulna bones silhouetted against the light passing through my arm. Then the concussions of the blast hit, and the darkness takes me.

* * *

A gust of cold air washes over me, and I'm being showered in semi-frozen water. My eyes drift open, my short hair being tousled in the wind, and I try to see. There are distinct purple spots in my vision, but my eyesight is gradually returning. I try to sit up and immediately regret it. My left arm buckles, and a shooting pain arcs through it. I cradle it under my right arm and shift my attention to my surroundings. There is nothing left of the command center. Judging by the molten metal cascading from various points along the edge of the precipice before me, the support beams _melted._ My ears are ringing, and for a while all I can make out is this humming sound, but eventually my hearing returns.

I look around, but don't see anyone else. Standing dizzily, I marvel at the sheer, unadulterated dumb luck that saved me. When the explosions shattered Zavala's ward, I must have been hurled backwards by the red crate just outside his ward. I carefully walk forward, and peer over the edge of the shattered concrete and twisted metal. It's a sheer drop down. I start to reflect on who must have died, but quickly push the thought away.

 _There's no time for sentiment._

By the staccato of gunfire and the alien roars, the fighting isn't over yet. And I'm unarmed, injured, and alone... and the fire is spreading. I turn back to the exit, but the main entryway is blocked by intense flames. Whatever this glowing stuff is, it's eating through the concrete and steel with wild abandon, and the few rain droplets that hit it cause the patches to emit bolts of electricity.

 _Yeah, I'm not going that way._

I don't see any other way out, so I shamble over to one of the piles of stuff that had been thrown back by the explosions and dig around. After a minute, I'm able to unearth an odd-looking device. It's bright yellow, with black bands running across the frame. It's designed to be held with two hands, and I can just manage to wield it by tucking it under my right arm and manipulating it with my left. The tip of it tapers to a point that's nested by a pair of concentric rings, and three small actuated arms protrude forward. What I'm holding is called a GRABT. That stands for Gravitometric Resonating Alternating Beam Transmitter. It's not a gun, but it's probably the next-best thing given my circumstances.

GRABT's were invented to be used for construction jobs. They emit concentric energy waves that "grab" a nearby object and induce an artificial gravity-like field. The actuating arms have magnetic emitters that modify the field strength around the captured object, which allows the user to rotate it and position it. A button inset on the grip allows you to drop captured objects, or alternatively push them forward (or throw them if you're feeling adventurous). Unfortunately, these gizmos are energy-hogs and can't operate for long even with an external power supply. This imposes some harsh restrictions on the size and weight of what you can pick up, but it should be enough for my purposes.

Rounding on the debris around me, I start picking up and hurling pieces of concrete at a nearby wall. It takes a couple of minutes, but eventually I do enough damage to cause it to collapse. The corridor beyond is also damaged, and stress fractures are running through the walls and floor. It looks like I'm at one of the robot repair stations. A smile lights up my face as my sight drifts over a fission power cell nested in a robot's chest cavity.

 _Jackpot._

* * *

As I'm finishing my upgrade, klaxons begin sounding. It looks like the fire is starting to spread towards critical areas of the tower. With the sheer extent of the damage to the control room, that's not surprising. Automated emergency systems were routed through the data-center... which means that the fire suppression systems haven't activated.

 _S#!t._

I was originally planning on evacuating the tower, but with most other chief engineers dead that doesn't leave me with many options. There are several tons of military-grade explosives and missiles stored off of the hangar, and if those get compromised by this plasma-fire it will take a microscope to find my remains after the resulting detonations.

I use my GRABT to wrench a pair of unpowered doors open. They squeal in protest, and one begins bending inward as colossal gravitational forces try to pluck it out of its frame.

"Badass."

About halfway down the maintenance corridor there are a series of pressure release valves. I reach them at a jog, and quickly place my GRABT on the floor next to me. Quickly unscrewing them allows a pressurized stream of high-viscosity coolant to flow down the piping and into the ordinance bay. With that crisis averted, I pick my gun back up and-

Vibrations shake the floor, emanating from somewhere above me, and looking back I can see the fire is starting to spread into the hall I left. It sounds like the frequency of weapons fire and explosions is increasing, which probably means more invaders.

"The only way out is through."

Robert Frost's words don't inspire much confidence in me as I march ahead towards what is probably certain death.

* * *

The coolant chilled me to the bone, but it's probably harmless as long as I don't try to drink it. On the plus side, the swelling in my left arm has gone down a bit thanks to it. Flexing it carefully, I'm guessing it's probably an incomplete fracture, but I'm not a doctor.

 _I'll have to get it taken care of as soon as I get out of here- if I can, anyway._

I'm just outside the maintenance access to the hangar, lying on the stairs with my back to the wall. Grabbing a piece of broken glass, I shift it so it's reflecting the scene beyond. I can see several shattered robots, but the place seems to be mostly intact. A trio of cabal are pacing the bay with guns readied. Scorch marks from weapons fire decorate the floors and walls. I don't give myself good odds for getting past them without being melted.

Zavala's voice rings out across the loudspeaker systems, on a loop,

"Attention all civilians. Move to your designated evacuation areas immediately. The Tower is under attack, this is not a drill."

 _I'm trying, dammit._

Wracking my head for a way to get out of this situation, inspiration wells up within me as I see a nitrogen-tank on the ceiling located above a ship. Reaching into my utility harness, I withdraw a chemical glow-stick and break it. An eerie green illumination surrounds me, and I levitate it with GRABT. Quickly extending the hovering stick over the ship, I begin shaking it back-and forth in a random pattern. The cabal beneath begin firing at the unknown threat, and advance towards it until they're standing in a circle around the vessel.

I drop the glow-stick, and target the nitrogen tank with GRABT. There's a cascade of pops as fastening bolts shoot free, then screaming metal as the support struts bend and snap off of the ceiling. As soon as its free of the ceiling, I cancel the field and watch the tank plummet forty feet onto the ship beneath. The ship is pulverized, and a sudden collapse of its radioactive fuel containment causes a blossom of blue-green flame to encompass and vaporize the three cabal.

That finished, I round the corner of the stairs and begin running across the bay- just as a one-eyed alien steps out from behind a crate and raises its weapon to fire at me. It's short and thin compared to the others, but it's approximately human-sized. I don't have time to raise GRABT at it with my injured arm, so I drop into a crouching position as a high-powered laser passes dangerously close to my head. It adjusts its aim to fire again as I'm doubled over, but automatic weapons fire from my right spooks it and it ducks behind the crate again.

I level GRABT at the crate and launch it off of the bay. The psion goes flying with it as several hundred pounds of ship plating crashes into it. Both go sailing out into the night and plummet out of my vision.

Glancing to my right, a lone robot with an auto rifle stands overlooking the bay from the catwalk. It raises a robotic thumb in a gesture of assurance, and nods its head.

* * *

I'm trapped. The courtyard is a literal war zone, as dozens of heavily armed cabal are assaulting Zavala's position. The transport shuttles for evacuation have stopped, and for good reason- cabal fighter-ships are shooting down anything that tries to get into or out of the tower. As for the last ship in the hangar, it's Holliday's, and was under heavy repairs as she modified its sub-light propulsion systems. It's not going anywhere, if it can start at all.

I can't get off the tower, and even if I tried I'd be shot out of the air. With no other solutions, I retreat back to the maintenance corridor to gather my thoughts. When I get stressed out, I find that fixing things helps me relax.

Grabbing a plasma-cutter, I marshal my thoughts around the task in front of me: my GRABT's fission cell is nearly empty, and I don't have a replacement. I need to get down into the lower hangar's holds to get at the robot assembly line. I mean, I suppose I could just take the power cell of the robot in the hangar, but I'd feel pretty badly about that, considering he saved my life. So instead, I'll be cutting open the door access panel and breaking in.

It takes a few minutes, but before long I'm through the door and running down the stairs. As I reach the bottom, an ear-shattering explosion of noise deafens as a wall-panel next to my head craters. The rapport of the gunshot echoes around the empty chamber, and I throw myself down behind the robot assembly station.

"Stay back! I warn you, I am armed! Traveller's light, I will send you back into the darkness if you come any closer!"

Another three shots ring out, and I'm stung as the repair station's front panels rupture.

"Stop! Stop, I'm a human!", I cry out.

The shots abruptly stop, and the familiar voice speaks,

"Prove it, and come out where I can see you."

I slowly creep out from behind my cover with my hands raised, and as I do the terrified face of the Cryptarch slides into view. The Cryptarch, and the biggest hand-cannon I have ever seen.

He slowly lowers the gun, and exhales his breath in relief.

"Thank goodness. You there, engineer, help me fix this ship."

He points back at the refitted cabal vessel-turned-lounge bar behind him.

* * *

 _This is not my job._

I'm a mechanoelectrical engineer, but that doesn't mean I understand flight systems. The lounge-bar is a refitted cabal vessel that has a vanguard issue onboard computer jury-rigged into the ship's systems. I'm not even sure Holliday would understand how this thing is supposed to work. And if that wasn't bad enough, whoever owns this hunk of junk has locked out its controls.

To be blunt, I am completely out of my depth on this problem. Recalling the spare onboard computers in the maintenance hall, I retrieved one and locked the lower holds entrance behind us. I don't know how long it will be before the cabal send reinforcements, but I don't want them down here while I'm working.

Plasma cutter in hand, I set to work slicing the original computer free. After a few minutes of work, I pry the laptop-sized hardware out and set it aside, and begin soldering the new computer in its place. Once in position, I spray down the still-molten circuitry with a blast from a fire extinguisher, and power up the systems.

As it initiates, a loudspeaker inset into the wall starts blasting music in a disjointed, warbling tune. The lights inside the vessel flicker into life. I don't really understand the layout of the cabal controls, and fooling with the switches eventually causes the hatch to close. The Cryptarch is sort of standing there nervously ringing his hands.

"Would you do something useful? Press some buttons... I don't know how to fly this thing.", I ask irritably.

We end up going over the entire control console, button by button, but aside from the hatch none of them are working. The Cryptarch finally loses his cool and approaches the speaker panel.

"I can't think with all this infernal noise!", he says, as he presses down on the volume button.

The ship abruptly launches backwards and the rear of its crashes into the stairs, throwing us both onto the deckplate. My face is incredulous as I look back at the awoken.

"Are you serious?!"

* * *

We spend the next few minutes playing around with the sound controls of the speaker-panel. Eventually we hammer out a primitive but workable system. Rahool is going to control the vessel by tweaking the volume and frequency of the music, which controls the acceleration and pitch respectively. I'd do this myself but I don't have the full range of one arm. Weapons systems are apparently managed by the sound affects buttons, with bombs being a foghorn and the fixed automatic weapons mounts being activated by beeps. For my part, I have to try directing him as we fly, since he doesn't have line of sight to the cockpit window.

"Worst dubstep ever.", I mutter.

We power the ship up, and carefully angle it towards the hangar wall. With a blast of foghorn, the wall explodes outward. We plow forward in the heavily-armored cabal carrier and fly into the storm.

This is the moment of truth for us. I discovered that the cabal IFF in the lounge-bar is still functional, and if we're lucky the cabal will overlook our crappy flying and allow us to escape. We both wait in anxious silence as we drift through the wind-tossed clouds, lightning and weapons fire.

It's an old code, but it checks out. The cabal all but ignore us as we fly past their interceptors and West, towards the Traveler and away from the assault on the city.

"Yes! Yes!", I cry out in triumph. Rahool laughs from the back.

It's at this point that a guardian vessel sights our cabal transport and begins opening fire. And with our ship-to-ship coms down, we have no way of telling them we're friends.

"No! No!", I cry out in horror. Rahool whimpers.

We both start screaming as the ship careens off course and plummets out of the sky.


	3. The Fool

_It is dark here._

 _I cannot see, but I can hear it. The hum. The beat. The pattern on the dark. But like the song on the tip of one's tongue, or the water cupped in one's hand, it is fleeting._

 _I thirst. My mouth is chapped, and my hide is so dry that I can feel it flaking away in the wind. The winds here are fierce, violent and unpredictable._

 _I hunger. My stomach is pain, like some animal that is trying to rip free of my body. It has been so long since I have fed. The islands are barren, cliffs worn smooth and clean by the intervals of the waves, and the peaks jagged and torn by the fury of the storms._

 _I will die here, if I do not feed._

 _I am touched by the warmth of the light sneaking between the clouds, and I feel nourished for a moment. But it is a temporary thing. A mirage on the dark, and just as quickly I am cold and tired again._

 _I can hear it._

 _Hidden in the whisper of the waves, it calls my name. It is the lull between the crashing waters, the gap between moments. The emptiness that suffuses all. There is life within the water. I need not die, if I can feed. That is what it says to me._

 _I walk to the edge of the cliff, perhaps for the last time. I can smell the acrid scent of the great ocean on the air. I can feel it through my feet, through the rock. The beat of the deep._

 _I fall._

 _I try to swim in it, but my arms and legs cannot find purchase in those fierce waters, and the undertow takes me. I am dragged down, down, down. The pattern of the deep pounds in my blood, in my form._

 _I cannot breath._

* * *

I can't breath.

I cough the burning liquid out of my mouth, and it sears my nostrils and throat. My eyes snap open, showing a beaming awoken standing over my prostrate body with an overturned bottle. Master Rahool is a mess. His robes are disheveled, and judging by the purple tints of his cheeks and nose, he's been drinking heavily. I'm soaking wet, covered in whiskey. Still disoriented from my dream, I have no idea where I am, and all I can do is stare dumbfounded as the strangeness of the scenario takes me.

Master Rahool laughs at my expense, then tries to take a drink from the bottle he emptied. He sucks on the lip for a few seconds, then gives up and frowns into the container. His expression rapidly twists into a rictus of rage, and he hurls the bottle away from him.

"Dammit! Damn it all!"

Kicking over tables and throwing chairs, he starts ravaging the remains of the compartment we're inside of. At this point, the events of last night start coming back to me. The Cabal, the escape, the crash. When the Cryptarch starts reaching for my GRABT, I have to stop him. Drunk as he is, it isn't too hard for me to overpower him.

"Rahool! Stop acting like an idiot! We need that!"

Rahool strains against me for a few seconds, then lapses into silence, and I feel him begin chuckling again beneath me.

"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore.", he explains, and reaches into his robe.

He withdraws his ghost... but something is wrong.

 _It's dead._

"What-?", I try to reach for the words, but I can't think of what to even ask.

Master Rahool starts weeping at the same time he's laughing, which is deeply disconcerting, and points at a gap where our ship's crash shore away the metal hull.

I stand, turning away from him towards the gap. A bright red glow is shining through. I walk closer, and my breath catches in my throat as I see the Traveler. The Cabal have captured it, somehow. A menacing device has affixed to the god-sphere, and a sheathe of some black metal is expanding across its surface, dimming its light. The Vanguard failed... the Cabal have the Traveler.

"What does this mean?", I ask aloud, to no one in particular.

"It means, it's over.", Rahool drawls.

I hear an audible click as the hammer of a gun is pulled back, and in a split second I round on the Cryptarch. GRABT trained on his gun, I wrench it away from his temple as his finger squeezes the trigger. The blast of the hand cannon explodes in the confined space, and the bullet ricochets and shatters a pair of bottles behind the bar.

Master Rahool droops and falls to his knees, clutching at the ground and bowing his head until it's touching the deckplate.

"It's all over."

* * *

 _Maybe it's over. Maybe this is the end of the light. But I know one thing- I'm still breathing. I'm not ready to give up yet._

It took some time for me to work Rahool up to leaving the Cabal transport vessel, but once I explained we were looking for help, he perked up.

"Yes, of course. The Vanguard will protect us.", he says with newfound optimism.

 _Yeah, right._

"We can't stay here much longer. The Cabal patrols will only overlook this vessel for a little while, and if we stay we'll be trapped. Let's just grab what we need and head for the subway.", I explain.

"Why? Shouldn't we go back to the tower?", he asks uncertainly.

"No. Trust me, there isn't going to be anyone there. The place was being pretty heavily bombarded, and the entire command apparatus of the building has been destroyed. If the Vanguard are anywhere, they'll be underground.", I say as I point to a street light.

"Look there, Rahool. That means the backup power generators underground have activated. We won't be able to charge our datapads off of it, but most of the Last City's essential infrastructure should still be intact. Including mass transit. There'll be other people there, and weapons."

 _And maybe a way out of the city._

Satisfied by my explanation, Rahool nods in agreement and warily keeps his hand cannon readied as we navigate the city streets and back alleys.

We do our best to avoid the Cabal, but some of the fights are unavoidable. We end up having to hide in an automated garbage collection robot for a stretch of the journey, which stunk both literally and figuratively. Even with those measures, the spare fission cells I grabbed before we left the tower don't last long, and by the time we reach the subway station entrance we're already running out of ammunition.

Shortly after entering the station, a bright flash illuminates and blinds us, and a commanding voice calls out from an unseen position.

"Drop your weapons and place your hands against the wall."

* * *

His name is Cairn, the ex-guardian that's "rescued" us. He's a gray-armored titan equipped with an impressively large shotgun, a sidearm and a heavy machine gun. I can't properly see his face through his skull-motif helmet, but judging by the condition of his armor he's seen more than his fair share of battle.

Shortly after making sure we aren't a threat, he leads us down a stretch of tunnel and into a service corridor. It's pretty cramped, and in the darkness I can hear people whispering in fear. The air is damp and filled with the smell of unwashed bodies, smoke, and human waste. I'd gag, but I'm no rose at this point either. I'm still covered in plastic residues, dried coolant and whiskey, and the sickly sweet mix has a kind of noxious odor.

He marches us past the other survivors and into a chamber with a collection of generators and lamps. A handful of ex-guardians are sleeping or resting against the walls on the hard-packed soil. An impromptu table made from a series of doors and concrete blocks has been set up at other end. He seats himself behind it and gestures to a pair of overturned buckets with what is _probably an excessive air of authority_. I try to sit on the bucket, and in spite of my efforts it winds up being just as uncomfortable as I'd expected.

With a hiss, he depressurizes and removes his helmet, and rests it on the table in front of him. One side of the human's face is badly burnt, and one sightless eye reflects the lamplight of the room with a golden sheen.

"Gentlemen, these are trying times. A dark shadow has been cast across the Last City, and the people are lost without the direction of the Vanguard. Your timely arrival is providence, Cryptarch." He intones, looking to Rahool with steely eyes.

"As you are no doubt aware, our connection to the light has been severed. Without the support of our ghosts, without our immortality, every conflict with the Cabal comes at a terrible cost. With your help, we can begin expanding our numbers and arming them. There are countless honorary guardians that are willing to put their lives on the line to defend the city."

 _Say what?_

"Wait, what do you mean by "honorary guardian"? Without the light, aren't you just another person?", I ask.

Cairn pauses his monologue, and rests his heavy gaze on me. As though looking at some kind of insect, he's probably considering whether to squash me.

"Son, I don't think we've been introduced. Who are you?"

His tone is intimidating, but something about the subtext of his words is bothering me, and I find myself speaking before I can reconsider my answer.

"I'm Richard Andrew Weaver, chief mechanoelectrical engineer of the the Tower. What is an "honorary guardian"?"

My response seems to cheer him up a little bit, and he considers my question for a moment and explains,

"Many of the vanguard have fallen in battle with the Cabal. Without the ability of ghosts to raise us, our numbers have thinned to an unprecedented level. We no longer have the strength to protect the people of the city by ourselves. Fortunately, " Cairn gestures to the hallway behind us, "there is no shortage of those willing to fight. They have nothing... no homes, no hope. But they hate the Cabal", Cairn smiles, "and perhaps that will be enough."

I can't believe the words I am hearing. They have no food, no water, no electricity, no weapons, no intelligence and no reinforcements. They don't have a prayer, and if the man before me has his way, many of the survivors are going to die for a false sense of duty. It begins dawning on me, that Cairn just might be a madman.

Cairn stands, towering over me and Rahool, puts his helmet back on, and continues his speech,

"We will prevail. The Cabal will be routed, the Traveler will be unshackled, and the Vanguard will rise again. And you two... will help us do it."

I suddenly become keenly aware that we are the only two unarmed people in the chamber.

"I can't, I have to-", I try to object.

"I'm not asking for your permission.", his tone menacing, Cairn waves us off with one hand, and a pair of ex-guardians lead Rahool and I away to different areas of the compound.

* * *

On the bright side, they gave me my GRABT back, and even let me take one of the scarce fission cells from their generators to power it. Oh, and my broken arm is sporting a splint and a sling. On the downside, I am walking towards what is probably going to be my death. A pair of ex-guardians trudge before and behind me in the tunnel, weapons high and scanning the darkness for threats.

One of Cairn's first directives to me was to help restore power to the Underground. Without power, water pumps won't pump, lights won't shine, and Rahool won't be able to decrypt engrams. Essentially, this entire hair-brained scheme of Cairn's hinges on me being able to fix whatever is wrong with the secondary power generators. The thing is, I'm about 99% certain that they are operating perfectly fine. The streetlights on the surface are evidence of that.

I suspect that the Cabal have captured the central Hub, and chances are it will be heavily defended. Even if we manage to retake the control center and secure the generators, I don't know how Cairn plans to keep them. The Cabal aren't going to stop trying to take them back. I'm hoping he has some ideas besides throwing bodies at the problem, but he doesn't seem to fully grasp the costs of this plan. He ignored my objections to this mission, telling me, '"Get it done"'.

 _Isn't that typical? Making an engineer solve problems you don't understand._

The ex-guardian with the pulse rifle in front of me is named Graves. I had to tease the name out of him, much to his annoyance. He seems pretty stressed- I can't say I entirely blame him. Judging by Graves's armor, the human was probably a warlock. Those robes won't be very durable against weapons fire. I just hope he doesn't try to melee Cabal out of habit. Without the light buoying the power of his blows, his palm-slaps won't get him far.

The one behind me is named Lilly, and she is pretty conversational as far as guardians come. She's lazily resting a scout rifle against one shoulder, and with the knife at her waste and her flowing cape, she was probably a hunter. Noticing my stare, the awoken grins and winks at me with one vibrant orange eye, and quips,

"Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer."

Smiling back at her nervously, I tear my eyes away and and strain my ears to hear what might lie ahead. I think I can just make out the sound of humming electric lines, but it could be my imagination. My tinnitus has been getting worse since the crash.

The sudden crash of metal on concrete has us jump, and we squeeze ourselves into the corner between the ground and the wall. Creeping closer, we spot its source:

Around the bend, a psion has ripped open a panel and is digging around in the optical fiber. He seems pretty engrossed, and hasn't noticed us yet.

With a nod from Graves, Lilly withdraws her knife and sneaks behind the alien. One quick slice, and ichor is spraying from the wound in his neck. We leave his twitching body behind, and advance into the outer sections of the central Hub.

The Hub is located in the exact center of the city, which is no coincidence. The first council established that the city would be designed in a radial pattern beneath the Traveler, in order to maximize the protection it extends. All major lev-train routes pass through the Hub, and the central control for city services (water processing, hard-line communications, waste disposal, and emergency power) is managed here.

As I'd feared, the place is swarming with Cabal. The Hub itself is powered, casting bright white light around the area. Once the shooting starts, we probably won't be able to hide. The Cabal are loading crates of something into the lev-trains around it. I'm not sure what that's about. Looking above, towards the ceiling, I can make out the control room. A trio of psions are watching over the operation.

"There are too many for us to take on.", Graves says somberly.

"I don't see a way in without exposing ourselves." Lilly notes, her face set in an uncharacteristically serious expression.

I say nothing, analyzing the situation, and get an idea. A really bad idea. "You guys aren't going to like this."

* * *

The three of us have hidden ourselves in the caboose of the nearest lev-train. They look back to me for direction, and I gesture towards one of the dozen or so crates lining the interior of the compartment.

The two ex-guardians clamber onto the crate, and I power on GRABT. The object lifts off of the ground, and I carefully aim upwards. If my calculations were right, hurling the crate at this angle should bring the two close enough to leap into the control center. Then again, I had to do the calculations on the sandy floor of the tunnel in near-complete darkness.

Graves checks on me over his shoulder. "This had better work, Skip."

I nod and respond, "Cross your fingers."

 _And hang onto your butts._

With a blast of power, the crate slams forward and soars through the air. The two ex-guardians jump at the apex of the ascent, guns firing at the windows of the control center. In a spray of glass the two crash through the panes and roll into standing positions. The psions are caught by surprise, and two go down in a hail of bullets. The third has a moment to activate a Cabal device affixed to a terminal before he too joins his brothers in the great beyond.

The crate I fired continues onward, smashing into a train on the other side of the Hub. It almost immediately ruptures and a white-hot explosion follows. The entire lev-train goes up with it, and a wave of intense heat and kinetic force spreads out, killing Cabal in a wide area around it. The ceiling caves in over it, closing off street access to the Hub. When the wave reaches me I get thrown off of my feet and land on my back.

"Skip, what the hell happened?!", Graves's voice cracks over my coms.

As soon as my breath returns, I respond, "The crates... *pant*... are full of explosives. The trains are rigged to blow up!".

"You launched us on a bomb?!"

I stand back up to try to get a better look at what's going on.

The Cabal nearest to the command center, those that survived the explosions, are advancing on it and firing through the windows. The ones that had been loading the lev-trains break off from the battle and board them. Realizing I'll be exposed, I retreat into the rear of the caboose, near the aft entrance.

The lev trains power on as the rails beneath them flow with electricity. Bolts arc up from beneath into the transports, and they smoothly begin accelerating away from the station.

The Hub rapidly passes out of my sight as the lev-train I'm on speeds around a corner. My coms pops and crackles, then goes dead as I pass out of range.

* * *

I'm trapped. Again.

This time on board a lev-train packed with Cabal, volatile explosives, and heading for an unknown destination. I considered jumping off as it started moving, but I was too scared to try. Now, that moment is long past.

Lev-trains are fast. They can accelerate to over three-hundred miles an hour given a long enough stretch, and with the exception of air resistance completely ignore friction. At the speed we're going, my body would shatter in twenty different places before being sucked into the vacuum under the train. If the impact wouldn't kill me first, the arc-energy pumping out of the rails would.

The door at the front of the cab slides open, and a pair of legionnaires march in. One turns to the face the door, and the other begins proceeding down the corridor between the crates lining the walls.

I crouch behind a crate as he passes by. The alien reaches the end, walks through the automatic door and peers out at the retreating tunnel, before about-facing and marching back to his ally. I silently tip-toe behind the Cabal and slip out of the back as the door hisses shut behind him.

The area outside is turbulent with rushing air, but is surprisingly quiet.

 _I can't go forward, and I can't get off. All I can do is wait for the end._

The weight of it, all of it, finally hits me. The loss. My life is over, even if I survive this. The Tower is gone, the City has fallen. Everyone I know and love is probably dead. Images of times shared, and of things unsaid flash through my mind, and I see the faces of my friends. I remember the first time I completed a ticket on my duty roster. I remember kicking back a beer with Shaxx at the bar. I remember the applause I received from the other technicians as I was awarded that damn ribbon. But mostly, I remember Amanda. Her humor, her contagious tenacity, her courage.

I withdraw something I'd been saving for a celebration, a bottle from the crashed lounge-bar. It's something from the Golden Age. I don't know what it is called, but it tastes good, and it takes the edge off of what I'm feeling. It burns as it goes down my throat, and I feel a fire in my stomach. My thoughts drift to how this all started... and who to blame.

 _Those damned Cabal._

Humanity never wanted this war. We just wanted to be left alone. But they decided to come here, to kill us, to steal our Traveler. My blood starts to boil as I relive the attack, and picture my friends falling away into the darkness. They've **taken** my friends. They've **taken** my city, my tower. They've **taken** my best friend.

 _I will **take** them._

Driven by a mix of alcohol and righteous fury, I find new motivation.

I spot a service box at the back of the caboose. Opening it reveals an assortment of repair tools and spare parts. I pocket the plasma cutter and notice something else that's useful. Tucked beside the box is a wheel of industrial-size cabling- a couple thousand feet's worth, at the least. A terrible plan is born in my drink-addled head as I look between it and my GRABT.

I eject the fission cell and stow it. I use the plasma cutter to slice off one end of the cabling, and peel back the insulation. I split the cable and using solder I snagged from the repair station, I fuse the wires into the GRABT. I slice off the other end of the cabling, loop it through the guard rail and tie it around a heavy piece of scrap metal. Next, I hang the wheel from my utility harness on my back and pick up GRABT.

I take one last long swig from the bottle and pour the contents over the track behind me, and toss away the bottle. I can't be sober for what I'm about to try. I fiddle with my coms, and music begins playing. The dulcet voice of a pre-golden age singer by the name of Freddie Mercury drifts on the wind around me.

 _"Tonight I'm going to have myself a real good time"_

I edge up to the end of the platform, overlooking the railing, the scrap-metal resting on the edge. A chill runs up my spine.

 _"I feel alive"_

I hesitate for a few moments as my resolve quavers.

 _I don't want to die._

But there's no turning back, now.

 _"And the world I'll turn it inside out, yeah_

 _And floating round in ecstasy"_

I tip scrap metal over the edge with one foot, and turn to face the door. I clench my whole body, close my eyes, and wait for the moment of truth. Either this will fail horribly, and I will die in fire and agony... or...

 _"So don't stop me now"_

The scrap metal bounces and rolls for an instant, then settles as it drags on the sand between the tracks, rapidly accumulating a static charge. Arcs of electricity lash out from the rails into the frayed edges of the cable, and course through the line and into GRABT. I feel a tingle and a few sparks fly out of the tool. It hums with power. My eyes alight with wonder, I begin grinning from ear to ear.

 _"Don't stop me_

 _Cause I'm having a good time_

 _Having a good time"_

The door to the rear of the cab blows inward, dented and ruined, nearly missing the Cabal. They jump, and turn around with guns raised, but can't fire. They can't fire because I picked up one of the crates of explosives, and I'm holding it ahead of me like a maniac in order to shield myself from their weapons. If they shoot, the entire train along with themselves will blow up.

 _"I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky_

 _Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity"_

I don't really give them a chance to consider their other options as I charge towards them. With a yell that is equal parts terror and anger, I crush one legionnaire with the crate against the wall of the cab, then pin him in place with it. I round on the other, levitate him, and start hurling him around the compartment. I smash him between the floor and ceiling several times, then fire him through the wall of the cab. The metal rents outward and he slams into the concrete wall outside. I hold him in place for a couple of seconds, and sparks fly as his metal armor grinds against the rough wall at hundreds of miles per hour.

I finally realize I'm screaming, and release my white-knuckled grip on the trigger of GRABT. The Cabal soldier falls out of sight. I turn back to the door ahead of me, ready GRABT, and march on. The spool on my back unwinds behind me as I advance.

 _"I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva_

 _I'm going to go go go_

 _There's no stopping me."_

* * *

I jog forward through the lev-train, compartment by compartment. Wave after wave of Cabal are dying as I pulverize their bodies with the colossal power of gravity. It seems like their metal armor doesn't stop me from liquefying their internal organs with titanic force.

 _Physics be a hash mistress._

At some point the Cabal get wise and change up tactics. They try removing all the cover from some compartments, or relying on flaming blades and some kind of hound-like creatures, but none of it works. With a supercharged GRABT by my side, it's kind of like they're trapped in a confined space with an Ogre. And even without other cover, I can just use one of their own as a meat-shield from their assaults. I leave their broken and fractured bodies in my wake, and before long I'm nearing the front of the train.

As I pass through a door into a conspicuously empty compartment, my coms starts cracking, and a familiar voice comes through.

"-kip? Do you copy?"

Lilly's feminine voice comes through loud and clear. That means they were able to tap into the hard-line communications network of the Hub, which bodes well.

"Yeah, Lilly, I can hear you."

At the other end of the compartment stands the largest Cabal I have ever seen. He would tower over the smaller Cabal I dealt with, and given his reflective armor he is probably higher-ranked. A violent-looking weapon is clutched in his meaty right hand. I venture a guess that it's some kind of multi-barreled shotgun or launcher.

"You're alive! Oh, thank the Traveler."

With a grunt and a wave of his hand, a series of detonations trigger, and the roof the the compartment flies off, exposing us to the high winds of the tunnel. A pair of mechanical wings glow behind his back, and he lifts into the air ahead of me, until he's almost level with the ceiling. Jets of plasma launch out of his weapon, and arc through the air towards me. I run to the left, trailing the power cabling behind me as a I go.

The plasma bolts impact with the floor where I had been standing, melting the metal paneling. The globules explode outward, and I feel a drop of the red substance latch onto my shirt, burning my skin through the thin material.

"At the moment, yes. Call me back later? Kind of busy!"

I aim the explosives crate I'm carrying at the golden Cabal, and launch it. It hits him head-on, and the white-hot energy splashes across him and the ceiling. Chunks of concrete and a cloud of dust are dislodged by the blast.

Graves's voice sputters into the coms at me,

"Look here! We don't have time for your problems. The destination of the lev-trains are the major terminals of the subway complex; the Cabal plan to collapse them!"

The ramifications being, thousands of refugees dying on the surface with nowhere to run. And of course, the few hundred hidden away by the Underground dying from the cave-in.

As I look up at the debris from the blast, for a brief moment I'm sure he's dead. The dust cloud being stripped away by the wind reveals the truth; a shimmering field of energy surrounds the Cabal. The crate didn't even scratch him. He takes aim and fires again.

I panic and rip up deck plating to use as a shield. The plasma impacts the thin metal, scattering plasma drops that hiss and melt into the floor around me. The metal plate warms, then glows bright red as it becomes suffuse with heat.

"So reroute them!", I shout hysterically.

I propel the molten metal slag at the flying Cabal. Some of it splashes on him, and I see his shield flicker and weaken around the liquid metal. I pull another deck-plate up just in time to interpose it with the next wave of plasma shots.

"The Cabal connected a lockout device to the terminals. We remove it, we fry the controls."

I continue plucking deck-plate off of the floor and launching it at the Cabal as it melts. I'm making gradual progress, and the field around him begins to fade as more and more of the viscous substance adheres to him.

 _Skip, remember your training._

I'm an engineer, which means I've done my fair share of time doing IT. One basic assumption of the job is that the end-user is incredibly stupid. It's just more convenient from a problem-solving approach to go through the most common mistakes procedurally.

So, more out of habit than a stroke of genius, I ask,

"Did you try turning it off and back on again?"

Graves starts shouting back at me through through the coms, but Lilly cuts him off,

"No, wait. He's right, Graves. If we can shut off the power generators for a fraction of a second, we should be able to rip that thing off without damaging the other components."

"Are you nuts, Lilly?! That's suicide. There's an entire platoon of Cabal guarding the power station."

"Someone has to do this, Graves. And last I checked, you aren't the stealthy type.", I get the sense she's smiling, even though I can only hear her voice.

"It'll be a cinch. In an out. They'll hardly know I was there."

I'm still working on getting through the Cabal's shield, but it's still holding strong and I'm running out of floor. I glance at the fission cell on my belt.

 _It's the only way to be sure._

Immediately after firing another salvo of molten metal, I grab the fission cell and fling it in front of GRABT. The device lifts it and I draw GRABT in line with my flying opponent. The three actuator arms of the device begin compressing the field around the battery. The unstable radioactive isotope inside increases in density as the football-sized fission cell is crushed into something the size of a ping-pong ball.

Intense heat and an unnatural aura are emanating from the front of GRABT. I fire.

The packet of agitated radioactive isotope collides with the force-field of the Cabal, and erupts into a explosion of blue-green light and lurid flame. His lifeless burning husk hits the ceiling, flips over the side of the train and falls out of sight.

I collapse onto my knees, panting, and stare at the remains of GRABT. The entire front end of the machine is melting and jetting smoke. Looking ahead, I can see the cab of the train. I place the ruined GRABT aside and pat it affectionately.

"That'll do, rig."

* * *

I spend the next couple of minutes trying to navigate across what's left of the floor. A wide expanse of floor plates are bent or missing altogether, exposing the churning air beneath. Other areas of the floor still glow with heat, and are too dangerous to walk on. In the end, it becomes necessary for me to leap across the shortest gap I can find.

 _The longest yard of my life._

From there, it's just fifteen feet to the entrance of the cab. Unsure of what to expect, I tightly grip a monkey wrench in both hands and enter.

I slip inside the cab and look around the dark interior. Numerous multicolored switches, dials and buttons adorn the surface of the console. Not seeing anything overtly dangerous, I walk forward slowly.

I reach the front, and spot what I was dreading: a Cabal lockout device like Lilly described has been embedded on the controls. It's a circular plate with some kind of semi-transparent lens in the center. Metal tendrils have spread out from it across the panel and have punched through the cover into the circuitry like roots. It's unlike any other Cabal technology I've seen, and I ponder if it's an invention of the Psions.

A small bolt of electricity discharges into my hand when I try to touch it, and I yelp in pain- breaking my engrossment with the device long enough to notice the sound of something falling to the floor behind me. I turn to face it, wrench held high and feet set apart.

A Psion has a rifle trained on me. We stand there, staring at eachother in the darkness. It, with a directed energy weapon, and myself with a fearsome metal club.

The seconds tick by, and it begins to dawn on me, why I'm not dead. It can't risk firing at me, or risk damaging the device and causing the train's payload to detonate prematurely.

It steps closer, rifle lined up with my body. No doubt to get the controls out of its line of fire. I retreat, pressing backwards until I can feel a lever pressing into my lower back.

It creeps nearer and nearer to me, until it's just outside my striking range, raises its gun, and-

and we're plunged into darkness.

I experience a second of vertigo as the cab rapidly descends, and reflexively roll aside to avoid the shot I know is coming. True to form, the Psion fires at where I was an instant before, and the interior becomes awash in red as a laser cuts a line through the lockout device behind me.

The cab hits the ground, bouncing and shaking, and I'm thrown off of the controls. The unholy sound of metal-on-metal scraping drowns out other noises as the interior quakes and rumbles.

As soon as the lights flicker back on and the lev-train is ascending again, I'm already moving. I close the short distance to the Psion, and using the wrench as a club, I knock his rifle aside. Dropping his weapon, the Psion grabs me by the throat and with an unexpectedly inhuman strength, lifts me bodily off of the ground and pins me to the wall next to us.

The cyclops stares at me as his grip tightens, blocking blood and airflow, and I'm almost sure his chirps are laughter.

I'm not strong enough to wrench his hands free of my throat, and spots are forming at the edge of my vision. Fumbling with one hand, I pull the plasma cutter on my harness free, activate it, and jam it into his eye.

He shrieks in pain, releasing me, and I fall gasping at his feet. I recover quickly, and using my legs I kick off from the ground in a low tackle, toppling the Psion onto his back.

I clamber on top of him. He's kicking out and punching, but the intense pain from the plasma burn to his eye makes his blows random and misdirected. I press my advantage, and straddle his chest. Lifting the heavy monkey wrench overhead, I bring it down over his head. Again, and again, I keep hitting him, until he stops moving. The strangely metallic ichor oozes onto the floor of the compartment, and I warily stand.

I drop the monkey wrench, and it clamors against the metal floor. For about a minute, I just pause to gather my breath and calm down. Eventually my breath slows, my heart stops trying to beat out of my chest, and the aches and pains of my body come racing back.

Eventually I calm down enough to hear a warning coming from a readout on a monitor. It's detecting smoke from a rear compartment. Apparently the vibrations ignited something.

Wasting no time, I grab the Psion's beam rifle and exit the back of the cab. Taking special aim, I focus the beam over the locking mechanism attaching the cab to the rest of the lev-train. After several seconds of sustained fire, the pin and mechanism melt entirely, and the train begins drifting away as it gradually decelerates. Running back to the front, I kick the throttle of the cab into full, and it accelerates away from the train.

The cab is rounding a corner, with the lev-train just drifting out of sight, as a series of explosions can be heard and an intensely thick cloud of concrete dust fills the air. The wave of air pressure hits the cab, throwing it off-kilter and tumbling.

* * *

 _ **Take** me._

* * *

I faded out for a second there. Crashing into the ground at three hundred miles an hour is a lot less fun than it sounds. I have this perpetual sensation of vertigo and nausea, and my sense of balance is completely wrecked. Oh, and now in addition to dried coolant, plastic residue, and whiskey, you can add piss and a fluffy pink foam to the things I'm covered in.

When the cab crashed, a cloud of nanoparticles was released from high-pressure hoses located around the cockpit. This is a pretty common safety feature on modern aircraft and high-speed transport- the clouds coalesce into this flexible but durable pink foam, that, in addition to being highly fire resistant and buoyant, is also safe to eat.

Which is what I'm doing as I march back towards the site of the lev-train's crash. As bland and unappetizing as this pink stuff is, I haven't had anything to eat since the day before yesterday and I am starving. I can't get my coms to work either. Must have broken in the crash.

It seems that the rails were damaged by the crash or deactivated remotely; the metal rails no longer carry currents of deadly arc energy.

As I near the crash-site, I can see daylight pouring in from the surface. I ascend the rubble slowly, feeling every knick, burn, bruise and cut on my poor body. Finally, I come out into the daylight.

The area is a place I recognize. I can't believe my fortune as I see that my home is less than a mile away.

* * *

I shuffle as quickly as I can, staying close to buildings and avoiding open spaces. I can see Cabal patrol ships scouting the area, and every once in a while I can make out the sound of human screams and gunfire.

I reach my building, an upscale housing complex near a park, and enter through the broken glass of the entryway doors.

 _I wonder if the damage was done by the Cabal, or looters?_

My building is sporting heavy fire damage, and I can't hear or see anyone around as I descend the staircase into the sub-basement. That's right, the sub-basement.

See, it wouldn't normally be possible for a lowly engineer to afford living quarters in such a nice place, but I was able to secure accommodations that were more to my liking. It's remote, and it doesn't have much of a view, but I enjoy the privacy living underground provides. I can be as noisy as I like without having to worry about annoying neighbors, and I can keep whatever hours I want. It also helps me keep my hobby a secret. A lot of the things I get up to down here are technically illegal, but I'll get into that later. For now, all I want is a hot bath, a warm meal and a long, deep sleep.

Kicking on a backup generator, I power up my quarters. Everything is as I remember it. As remote as it is, my home hasn't been touched by looters or the Cabal. I flip some music on, grab whatever hasn't spoiled out of my refrigerator, and carry it into my bathroom. The next hour and a half I spend scrubbing myself clean, gorging myself on food, and performing first aid.

Covered in band-aids, a tank top and shorts, I hurl myself face-first into my bed and instantly fall asleep.


	4. The Chariot

_The expanse of observable space is awash with light. Myriad stars, from the smallest brown dwarfs to the colossal superstars of the universe's birth are scattered throughout it. Dancing between them are countless planets, and still more moons dance around them. Suspended between the revolving celestial bodies is a fine powder, a haze of icy rocks and gases. One would believe that the universe is filled with events, of mighty upheavals as stars and planets fall towards one another in the grip of gravity's wells. Apocalyptic impacts, fiery explosions and tectonic upheavals would seem to paint the face of reality, defining the character of this realm in the wake of catastrophe. But this is not the case._

 _The whole of the universe, like anything else, is made up of nothing. Like so many motes of dust suspended in a sunbeam, the moons and worlds and suns of space are inconstant, in flux. The gravity that holds them together is itself just an impression of their shape upon the emptiness of space. The expanse between even the most tightly-packed atoms is a gulf of magnitude, and the gulf of time between events still wider. And like dust, the matter of the universe is fraying, collapsing. The only truth, the only eternal truth of any kind, is that all things must end. The laws of entropy are inviolable. The will of the **Outside** knows this, and despises the light. It despises the lie creeping along the edge of its nature, touching its unknowable shape. And it has retaliated._

 _The anomaly came out of the darkspace (the place/time/event beyond the leading edge). It was not a natural form, not a sphere or disk, but a contoured line with a tapering tip. The shape of a hard black tooth, in accordance with its nature. For a billion years or more it was adrift, cast between the gaps of the universe's undulating shape, falling towards its destination. Its descent and path was not preordained, but inevitable. The fang of the dark sought the finest flesh, the intercise between infinite and oblivion, the center of all things._

 _After millennia of charting a path through the cosmos, it reached the place and time and moment, the tipping point. The Needle pierced a moon of the gas giant known as Fundament. It sheered through the porous surface of the satellite, cleaving a deep gouge through its rocky face, and fell into the planet's grip. Plowing through Fundament's atmospheres, it blazed a path through layer after layer of planet, and came to rest within it. The remnants of the moon drifted off course and likewise fell, shattering into thousands of pieces and littering the surface of the world._

 _Thus is it was that the Worms and the Krill came to inhabit the forbidden world. Thus it was that death first touched the great Heresy, and the first note in the song of the Deep became known._

* * *

There is no illumination, and I can't see. My hand fumbles around in the darkness to my right, and I find my alarm clock. Depressing one of the buttons on the clock doesn't stop the noise. As I shake off the sleepiness, I cup my hands over my ears to tune it out, the incessant buzzing. It doesn't help. My tinnitus has grown worse, and I'm starting to fear it will progress to total hearing loss at this rate. But until I see a doctor, there is nothing I can do for it.

"Lights on."

Cool artificial lighting illuminates the interior of my home. Flipping my legs over the side of my bed, I lean forward and run one hand through my short brown hair. The wooden boards of my loft creak faintly as I stand up and stretch, and I squint at my surroundings.

My home is essentially a single large room, about twenty feet tall on one side. An industrial sized water heater and pump dominate one corner. During the winter, it can become pretty noisy down here because of it, but at least my rent is cheap. A concrete stairwell ascends up the side of one wall from the water heater to the entry door. My loft is opposite from the heater, and a rudimentary kitchen and living space lays beneath it. The corner between my loft and the heater houses a gym-mat and weight racks, along with some basic exercise machines. To its left next to the heater is a wall-mounted shower head and drain, and a bathroom stall. The corner between the stairs and the loft has a pair of stainless steel worktables and stools, and a large, strange-looking apparatus. One table is covered in spare parts, diagrams and hand-written notes. A 3-d printer is perched on the end of it. The other table is mostly cleared off except for a long-term project of mine. The device between the tables is an old fixed-position virtual reality simulator. Some speakers are scattered around the interior of the room. I like to listen to music while I work, and right now that sounds like a good way to drown out the buzzing.

"Play music, Lupe Fiasco's _Lasers_."

As I descend the ladder, the music pumps out of the speakers. I cross the carpeted floor of my kitchen and wince as my bare feet touch the cool concrete floor between the carpet and my gym mat.

I start my morning routines with light stretching. My left arm's still sore, and fully extending it causes me shooting pains, but at least I can use it. As I move onto the treadmill, I consider not bothering, but habit compels me. My father taught me routine is the foundation of discipline, and that running is the foundation of athleticism. I never knew my father that well, as young as I was when he left, but I remember the mornings we spent together, honing our bodies. The jokes he'd tell, the play-wrestling. That competitiveness. I miss those moments, sometimes.

I start off at a regular jog, the sounds of my feet and the music a regular beat against the silence. He left my mother and I before I had any hair on my face. I'd be lying if I said I didn't resent him for it, for disappearing. His duty was everything to him, his responsibility to the city was all that mattered. He promised to come back, but left us behind on some black mission for the Vanguard. Before I know it, I'm sprinting, sweating and frustrated. I tag a control on the treadmill and slows to a stop.

 _I need to cool off._

The cold water does me good, soothing my aching body. Once again, my thoughts shift back to my past. The years after, my father's absence. My mother's cancer, the hopelessness of it. The guilt as I pursued my own future and education as she struggled. If only he'd been there, to help us, support us. She'd still be here if he had cared.

Flipping the water dial off, I pat myself with a towel and return to the kitchen pantry. I'm a bachelor, so I've never been much of a cook, and most of my meals come from restaurants around the Tower's perimeter. I didn't have much in the first place, and the feast from yesterday almost completely wiped out what was here. I withdraw the last few bits of edible food left, and wash it back with a ginger beer.

I dress lightly and go over to my workstation. My hand drifts across the armor on the table. From a young age, I'd always idolized the guardians. To the people of the city, the guardians aren't just soldiers or weapons of the light. They are the holy chosen of the Traveler, the heroes of Light, immortal gods among men. I was no different as a child, and in my mind my father had stood tall, all powerful and all knowing. It took years for me to stop waiting for him to come back.

I'd never understood the draw, the allure for him. He'd called it his duty, his calling. His purpose for existing. But as I replay the moments of last night in my mind, I think I can. The fury, the exhilaration, the rush of adrenaline. The sheer unadulterated terror and exultation of victory.

 _It's like a drug._

My hands are shaking lightly as I hold them up to my face. I draw them into fists, and look around the empty room. It seems... flat. Two-dimensional, like a picture. Near death-experiences have a way of shifting perspectives. My static existence, the repetition of normal life. I can't go back to that.

* * *

I slip the pieces on procedurally, layer by layer. The black suit is a heavily modified Knight/1 suit by Crux/Lomar. The now-defunct company had some revolutionary ideas for armaments, but their armor line wasn't nearly as popular and eventually got phased out. The suits suffered issues with software malfunctions due to over-engineered designs, and had a reputation for unreliability.

By edict, guardian equipment isn't allowed to be dispersed among the civilian population. Following the riots in the wake of the battle of Twilight Gap, the authorities of the city determined restricting weapons and armor access to guardians was the best course for maintaining peace. A handful of these suits entered circulation before the prohibition. It took some time, but I was able to assemble this one piece by piece from a variety of black-market vendors. Whatever I couldn't buy, I've been able to print myself based on old designs. The armor is the culmination of years of effort, and constituted most of my free time outside of work and other projects.

As I slip on the helmet, I thumb a button of the integrated computer on the left arm and the armor's heads-up-display initializes. Checking through the system, I see that vitals monitoring, coms and navigation all seem to be operating normally. The raised, glowing interface above the arm-pad is actually a virtual reality hologram generated by the helmet, and isn't normally visible to the naked eye. I finish mapping the armor to the contours of my body, and proceed to the other table.

I slide a case out from underneath it, and crack it open. A Hakke sidearm sits within, along with some ammunition. It's conventionally known as an Ironwreath. This particular one is an older model, a B rather than D, but is well-treated. It belonged to my father, and it is one of the few belongings he left behind. I withdraw it and slip a clip into the sidearm, then pull back the slide to load the chamber. I pause to admire the workmanship of the weapon, then holster it on my left thigh.

The other weapon resting on the table is a toy I've been working on for some time. It's a modified secondhand GRABT sporting a plain white color scheme. I've reinforced it with additional plating to increase its durability, and rather then three full actuator arms, they've been shortened to stubs at the end. It's a bit less powerful and flexible than it was originally, but the compromise allows me to use the more common standardized power packs found in other kinds of heavy weapons. In theory, rather than slugs it should explosively release a repulsive force. Tests so far have been pretty promising: a few cratered metal plates are laying next to the table.

I stow the tractor cannon on my back, and also grab the Psion beam-rifle. I can't make heads or tails of the indicators on the weapon, so I'm unsure of how much ammo it still possesses. Nonetheless, it joins the shotgun I'm carrying. A pair of EMP-grenade joins a hard-light holographic projector at my hip, and I test fire the FMA (Flexible Metal Armament) installed in my left forearm. A titanium-alloy dart two inches thick flashes out at high speed from below my wrist, impaling through the stainless steel of the table before retracting. I extend it again, holding it up for inspection.

"Groovy."

I do one last tour of my home, circuiting the areas, then ascend the stairs to the entryway. I look back over the place that's been my home for the last twelve years, then turn off the lights and shut the door behind me.

* * *

It's a long way to the roof from the sub-basement, and without working power the elevators are out of commission. I stroll up the stairs at a regular pace. The suit is surprisingly comfortable in spite of the exertion; the base layer of the suit is thermally regulated and airtight, and readings from vitals monitoring are constantly adjusting the temperature within. Servos in the armor gather electrical charge from the mechanical action of my arms and legs, powering the suit's systems, so the harder I move and run, the more efficiently it cools me.

While ascending, I pause at one of the floors to look around. Most of the doors are wide-open, their inhabitants long gone. Some of the apartments are ruinous, filled with char and on the verge of collapsing. Others are relatively untouched, as though the residents vanished mid-meal. It's disturbing, the juxtaposition of normal life and the destruction.

I continue upwards, and finally reach my objective: the storage units on the roof. Staying low to avoid drawing attention from a Cabal patrol ship, I crouch between the squat buildings and disarm the lock to my personal storage.

A few power tools and gas cans are scattered around, and a generator sits in the back. An oblong object under a tarp takes up most of the room in the storage unit. I pull the covering free with a flourish.

A piece of art lays revealed. I call her my "shrike". She's a modified sparrow from the EV line, and she cost me a fortune to buy. She sports two big improvements I've added. One is a pair of metal blades on the support struts, facing out towards the front of the sparrow. Unlike conventional sparrows, she _is_ designed for ramming into enemies at high speed. The second addition is a work in progress. When activated, the shrike's levitation field can be inverted; essentially, she can stick to walls and even ceilings. The downside is, this puts a huge strain on the engine and eventually results in catastrophic failure. Until I can get the heat-sink issue fixed, I'll have to use the traction perk sparingly.

I run one hand across her frame lovingly, then straddle her and lean in. My body perfectly matches the contours of her own, and a playfully tweak her throttle to listen to her purr. A quick check over the Shrike's display shows all systems- fuel, levitation, ionic thrust, strafe thrust- as green. I maneuver her towards the entrance to the unit, and flip on my coms.

For the most part, all I pick up is static, but via my arm-pad I can see heightened activity along one of the low frequency bands. Tuning in, I pick up a voice on my coms channel.

"This is Eva Levante of the tower, requesting guardian assistance. We have wounded and children. The Cabal are attacking us. Hurry- we can't hold them off. Oh Traveler, please save us!"

Signal triangulation indicates the survivors are two miles distant. Revving my shrike to full, I activate the ionic thruster and fly off of the rooftop.

* * *

Rounding the corner, I spot a team of four Cabal firing at the entrance to the office building. They haven't spotted me yet, and I accelerate at top speed towards the legionnaires. I plow into the nearest, impaling him on the blades of my shrike, and bring the vehicle around to face the other three Cabal. Their fire is being intercepted by the dead body on my shrike, so I withdraw my ironwreathe and open fire at them over his body. My shrike is drifting to the right to avoid incoming fire. Another two go down. Hearing the telltale click of my sidearm, I sheathe it, withdraw the beam rifle, and line it up with his head. The beam erupts out of the barrel and begins melting his head. One explosive decompression later, and all that's left of it is scattered on the ground around his body.

I kick the smoking remains of the impaled Cabal off of my shrike's blades, and proceed towards the office building. A handful of dead civilians are lying in pools of blood among the debris around the entrance. I try not to look at them as I enter.

I hear hushed voices whispering,

"Oh thank the light! A guardian!"

and

"We're going to make it through this."

Perhaps a half-dozen men and women with kinetic weapons are stationed around the building entrance as I enter. They look haggard, and several are sporting injuries of some kind.

I feel bad for misleading them, but I can't really deny it without quashing their hope. And that hope might be the last thing keeping them alive.

A child, perhaps eight or nine, is standing at the entrance to a hallway off the main lobby. She signals for me to follow, and sprints down it and through an open door. I follow her at a close pace.

The room beyond is filled with injured people, frightened-looking children, and the elderly. Many turn to me, faces lighting up in anticipation. I turn back to the girl that led me here. She's standing next to a hoverchair-bound-woman that shares a striking resemblance to her. I recognize the old woman immediately.

Eva Levante used to be a shopkeeper in the tower, and maintained a stall off the hallway to the Tower North. Her main area of focus was in shaders and emblems. She charged outrageous prices for her products, and I was always of the opinion that she had questionable taste based on her inventory. That aside, she was a warming presence of the Vanguard, and her contributions to the Festival of the Lost and the Dawning were appreciated by all. She stopped running her business last November, and rumor was that she'd developed some kind of nerve condition. She was missed, of course, but life goes on.

She smiles up to me from her seated position, and intones,

"My my. I haven't seen that armor in a long time." Her eyes linger on the augmentations of my suit in curiosity, and her gaze drifts back to my visor.

"Thank you for saving us, Guardian. As you can see", she gestures to the others, "we are not fit to continue defending against the invaders. We need to move these people into a safe place, but we have no transport and our resources have reached their limit."

She looks up to me, as though I know the answer to her dilemma. As if I have the solution. I know that look, that adoration. I feel the bile rising in my stomach as I answer,

"I'll get you out of here. That's a promise."

 _'"That's a promise"'._ _The last words he ever said to me._

I hear a cry being raised from the front of the building. The Cabal have returned.

* * *

The Cabal reinforcements drop down from their ship. I'm counting four- no, five Cabal soldiers. A trio of Psions also descend and spread out around the compound. The five Cabal start their approach to the entrance in a delta formation, weapons firing as they go.

I duck behind the nearest pillar, and try to control my breathing. Depressing a switch on my arm-panel, I activate the enhanced movement mode on the suit. I'm honestly not sure this will work at all. Physics modeling and virtual reality simulations can only go so far. They can't imitate the granularity and harshness of the real world. If this works, I'll be nigh-untouchable to the approaching Cabal. If it fails, I'll look like a fool and die comically.

At this point, I'm actually considering running. These enemies might be more than I can handle alone, and it would be pointless for me to die if they are. But the faces of the survivors in that room, I can't get them out of my head. The faith Eva showed in me.

 _I can't leave them to die._

I step out from my cover and chuck my EMP grenade in an overhand throw. It flies true, impacting the leading Cabal. An explosion of electricity follows and a cloud of flak drifts over the area, obstructing their vision.

Before they can recover, I activate the thrusters on my back plate and the repulsor fields on my hands and feet, and rocket forward in a semi-crouch. The shots from the two unaffected Cabal go over my head as I accelerate forward. It's difficult to maintain my balance as I slide/dash across the loose terrain, but I just manage as I ramp off of an outcropping of concrete. Flying over them, I extend my left arm forward towards the lead Cabal and raise my hand in a claw-shape. The FMA darts out of it and impales his chest with a sickening sound, and retracts. His chest is spraying blood and he doesn't seem to understand he's already dead as he falls to his knees.

I round on the next-nearest Cabal with my tractor cannon and line up my shot. With an explosion of gravitational power, I literally blow him away. His lifeless body impacts the Cabal behind him, who tumbles onto his back from the force. At this point, the Psions begin joining the fracas and start laying down rifle fire as they weave in-between cover. I fall flat to avoid their shots, using the dead Cabal as cover, and deploy my hologram generator.

A construct of hard light is generated over the device in the shape of a floating laser turret. It brings its sights to bear on the nearest standing Cabal, and they quickly succumbs to its automatic laser fire. Additionally, the motion-tracker in my HUD is being enhanced; thanks to it, I can pinpoint the hidden positions of the three Psions.

I stand and start running, dashing forward as I beeline for the closest two Psions. The dropship fires on the position I vacated, laying down searing-hot plasma on my holographic turret. A few shots overload the light-construct and the generator fails.

I leap over the Psion's cover and put spear the nearest one through the head with FMA. The second goes down from a blast of my tractor canon, its collapsed inward from the force.

The third Psion leaps out from behind cover and begins levitating. Blue energy is coalescing under him.

 _That's not good._

On instinct, I dash to the right just as a wave of arc energy propagates outwards from the Psion and explodes the concrete debris where I'd stood. Dropping my tractor cannon, I fast-draw my ironwreath and pump three bursts of semi-automatic fire into his chest.

The drop-ship is still firing on me as I dart behind a low wall. I take a quick scan on the surroundings and spot what I'm looking for: a pair of opposing walls between buildings.

I sprint forward at full speed towards one of the walls and leap up to it. Inverting my repulsors lets me momentarily stick to flat surfaces, and with the momentum from my thrusters I'm carried up the wall about ten feet. Kicking off, I leap to the opposing wall, and repeat the process to ascend another ten feet.

My thrusters are spent as I reach the apex of my ascent, and I kick off once more towards the drop ship. I aim and fire my FMA at the underbelly of the Cabal transport, and it pierces and anchors inside. The cable rapidly retracts, pulling me up to the underside of the ship.

With my free hand, I shove my last EMP grenade into the breach, then kick off of the underside of the transport. FMA rips free and returns to my left arm.

I land in a heap onto the hard rocks beneath, just as the grenade detonates. An electromagnetic pulse is released from the grenade and propogates through the Cabal vessel, temporarily disabling its flight systems. The beast comes down hard, and I have barely enough time to throw myself out of the way as it smashes into the ground.

Rounding on the rear of the ship, I bring the beam-rifle to bare on the door-lock and melt it with a sustained shot. The loading ramp falls open, revealing the interior. I put another two shots in the pilot's head as he leaves the cockpit.

Surveying the scene, I feel a profound sense of satisfaction as I note the score of dead bodies. A few of the survivors are peaking out of the building's entrance to see my the status of the battle.

"Hey, did somebody call an uber?"

* * *

The survivors don't waste much time as they begin filing out of the building and boarding the drop-ship. In the meantime, I'm busy at the controls, my arm-pad connected to the interface. Fortunately for me, Cabal software is very simple, and aside from secure systems there are practically no security protocols. Getting these people to the nearest entrance to the Underground is as simple as plugging in the coordinates and laying a course on the autopilot. With luck, the Cabal won't know anything's amiss with this transport until the survivors have escaped.

"Thank you, guardian. You have done so much for us."

Eva Levante's praise makes me glad I came out here, and seeing these people reach the Underground would be inspiring. But being called a guardian after so many years of despising and envying them just feels strange to me.

"No thanks necessary, Ma'am. I was just doing my duty."

She smiles, then asks,

"I would know the name of our savior. Who are you, dark knight?"

 _I'm Batman._

I barely fight off the urge to say that out loud, but can't come up with what else to say. I can't say my name, or I might be implicated for masquerading as a guardian. So I blurt out the first thing to enter my head instead.

"Yusuf."

She inclines her head to me as she ascends the ramp.

"Thank you, Yusuf. I won't forget this act. Stay safe."

The ramp closes behind her, and the ship takes off. As it passes out of sight, another enters the area and opens fire on me. I evade the shots and quickly hop aboard my shrike.

 _As if._

A field of red ions trail in my wake as I rocket away from the area.

* * *

I find another two other groups of survivors as I transit the city, so I point them towards the nearest subway entrances. That's nothing compared to the thousands that lie dead in bombarded buildings, but I try not to dwell on that.

As the second group is retreating down a service ladder into the tunnels, some voices begin to come through my coms.

"-ves, we can't hold this position. Operation Sesame is a bust. The fallen are everywhere."

Lilly's voice rings loud and clear into my headset. Looks like they're in trouble. I take a moment to triangulate their position based on the signal, and place a waypoint to their destination. The Tower.

 _Out of the frying pan..._

* * *

I'm near the base of the Tower... or rather, where the Tower used to stand. It looks like the Cabal attack on the complex didn't stop until they'd knocked it off the wall and turned as much of it as they could into slag. Piles of broken concrete, partially melted I-beams and exposed cabling are scattered around the area. As I approach, I pick up the sounds of automatic weapons fire and explosions coming from the East. Withdrawing the beam rifle, I scale the nearest hill and lay flat on my stomach in order to avoid being seen as I scout the area under attack.

It looks like Lilly is under fire from two teams of dregs that are gradually advancing around either side of the debris-pile that's protecting herself and Graves. Graves is gripping an injury on his stomach, and laying with his back to the cover. He looks barely coherent. To their left, a titan with an assault rifle is peppering the incoming dregs to keep them at bay.

A blue-white pulse of energy flashes from a forward position and the Titan goes down in a spray of blood. I can just make out a sniper standing over the crest of a far hill, his weapon trained on the guardians' position.

Withdrawing my beam-rifle, I drill the red-hot laser into the vandal, incinerating his body.

"Shit! Psions too?!" Lilly exclaims, her eyes sweeping across my position to find the source of the shot.

I hop aboard my shrike and quickly ride up to their position. I wave as I dismount.

"Oh thank the light for Cairn. He sent reinforcements after all."

Dismounting, I quip,

"Who were you expecting? The inquisition?"

Her eyes narrow in surprise, and aghast she responds,

"Skip? You're alive?!"

I didn't expect her to recognize me by my voice so easily. If she reports that I'm pretending to be a guardian, I'll be in hot water...

Trying my best to disguise my voice, I respond in a gruff tone,

"Skip? Never heard of the guy."

She seems nonplussed by my answer, then shakes her head and says,

"Ok, _not-Skip_ , just help me kill these Dregs, alright?"

I nod and we get to work. Lilly advances to the right, her scout rifle a regular beat as she places round after round into Dreg heads.

I go down the left, parallel to her and unload my sidearm into the handful of Dreg on my end. I strafe from side to side on approach to draw off their shots, and once I'm close enough a series of stabs with FMA are able to finish them off.

As we both meet on the other side of the junk pile, a Fallen drop ship is pulling away. Thankfully there is enough water from the storm last night for Lilly to notice the approach of new enemies.

"Watch it! We've got Vandal assassins moving in.", She gestures ahead towards the splashing water.

I can't see them clearly, but thankfully I don't have to. I deploy my hologram generator between us, and the light-construct turret shifts to track one of the invisible targets.

With our enhanced motion trackers, we're easily able to identify the approaching vandals. Between my turret and tractor cannon, and Lilly's skill with that knife, we make quick work of the vandals that are left.

The Fallen ship's soldiers depleted, it departs. Lilly starts cheering and unloading empty rounds into the air, then follows it up with some kind of victory dance. I guess I'm still a little self-conscious about this stuff, so I kind of stand there awkwardly until she's finished.

"I need to check up on Graves, get him first aid. Don't go anywhere," Lilly orders me.

Of course, I go exploring anyway. I won't be able to find the Vault if we don't take advantage of the lull in the fighting. So I walk a short distance away and try to figure out the best location to set up a sensor array to locate it.

That's when I notice that my tinnitus is getting worse. The buzzing is growing in volume as I near one of the rubble piles, and I can just make out that a space has been cleared that's big enough to walk through. The tunnel itself looks like it was cleared by hand, and I'm concerned it will collapse onto me as I pass through, but it holds. At the end of the tunnel, I can see the unmistakable shape of the Vault doors. The doors are battered, but it looks like the Vault is intact. It's leaning askew slightly, and upside down, but that shouldn't matter for most of the weapons.

I move in, and look around the interior. Guns, weapon racks and shattered display are randomly scattered around the interior. I walk in to start picking up weapons, but the buzzing in my head is growing unbearable. It's like a swarm of angry bees crawled into my head.

My pain distracts me, and I don't notice as a Fallen Captain appears behind me. His arc-blades flash out in an x-cross and they easily slice through my back-plate. I fall to the floor in pain, and try to bring my tractor cannon around to shoot him. He cuts through it, nearly taking my hand off at the wrist. I'm forced to drop it, and in panic I fire my FMA at him. The spike impacts his shield, but is deflected. Chortling through his multi-fanged mouth, he steps forward and pins me to the floor with one massive foot.

With a kind of patient satisfaction, he slowly pierces through my chest with the blade. It sinks in, inch by inch, and my chest feels like its on fire. Currents of electricity are pouring through my body, filling me with agonizing pain. I jerk and twist, but I can't escape. I can't breathe, my chest is full of fire. He's too strong.

My vision fading, my right hand comes to grip on the handle of a weapon. I bring it to bear on his head, and pull the trigger. Shot after shot strikes his shields, until they eventually fall. I try to hold on, I try to hold out until he dies. The darkness takes me.


End file.
